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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26109409">Pro Bono</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med'>Lyssandra_Med</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>One-Shot [70]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Altruism? What's that?, Creature Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Creature Fic, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures (Harry Potter), F/F, Fluff, Prison Reformation, Veela Andromeda Black, Veela Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Veela Druella Black, Veela Lucius Malfoy, Veela Narcissa Malfoy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:41:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,753</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26109409</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellatrix has seen things in Azkaban that no one ever should have. She's endured them too. When it happens that she's finally seen by someone who can do something she strikes her bargain to get things changed.</p><p>Or;<br/>Bellatrix is vindictive and Hermione wants to climb some ladders.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>One-Shot [70]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429282</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pro Bono</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/S058/gifts">S058</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>no-edit, short one shot from a prompt!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“No.”</p><p>“Yes,” Bellatrix replied, kept her gaze level as she sipped her tea, the little porcelain cup nearly quaking on the table when she placed it back. Her fingers were half-numb, half-dead. A consequence of the last few years she supposed.</p><p>“But I can’t make them do that-”</p><p>Bellatrix snorted, derision so evident that it might as well have been a whip crack in the silence.</p><p>“You can’t possibly make me ask them that-”</p><p>“They’ll agree! Just a quick jot of Polyjuice, some quality time alone in a cell. It’ll wear off and then you can spend some time in the barracks while they send someone to pick you up. Simple. They’ll all tell you, I know they will.” Bellatrix sighed, pulled up her most pitiful and forlorn look, “They would brag to one another in the halls. At suppertime. Whenever they thought we couldn’t hear them they would brag, and they’d even do it when we could sometimes, just for the hell of it.”</p><p>“Well I can have someone look into that right away Ms. Black, this <em> is </em> a serious accusation you’re levelling against the Auror Corps. But I can’t take it lightly and it <em> can’t </em> be me.”</p><p>Bellatrix knew that. But she also knew it <em> had </em> to be her. There was no one else who’s reputation would allow her to see them <em> and </em> ask them to do this.</p><p>Hermione was her best shot.</p><p>“Look, Ms. Granger, if you aren’t willing to help me out then I’ll just go and find a representative who can-”</p><p>“Who.”</p><p>Oh. Oh, now that just wouldn’t do. Apparently this woman - <em> this slip of a girl who looked like she might fall over in the wind if it dared to so much as blow at her, no matter how bloody tall she was </em> - had more bite then she’d let on.</p><p>“Well, I suppose I can-”</p><p>“Let me stop you right there Ms. Black. You’re attempting to challenge our laws under the systems governed by <em> my </em> department. Veela might be something that runs in your blood but it’s never once expressed itself in you. Your sister maybe, but even then only one of them. <em> You </em> might be more than a quarter Veela but the Ministry won’t see it that way by looking at you, and neither will the French assembly that’ll have to be convened to deal with this. I don’t need you, Ms. Black. But <em> you </em> need me.”</p><p>Bellatrix hated to admit that was true. Hated to sit there and except that the only reason she was here was because one of the guards had gone too far and been seen by an actual Ministry official, someone who had more pull than the average Auror Captain. Hated that she was reduced to speaking with <em> this </em> woman, claiming a heritage that others couldn’t even see.</p><p>Hermione Granger, departmental head for the Regulation of Magical Creatures &amp; Sentient Non-Human Species. Thirty-one years old and a rising star, she’d been on Bellatrix’s watch list even while she was still ensconced in Azkaban. Newspapers were a rare commodity but they <em> were </em> allowed, and while most of them were out of date by at least a year they had contained within them more than enough information to pass along <em> some </em> idea of what was happening in the wider world. Visiting family members made it easier, made it much simpler to keep up with the goings-on of Wizarding Britain. But even the last picture that Bellatrix had seen was more than a few years old, taken it seemed at some reunion after she’d left Hogwarts. Gold flowed from her eyes back then, fresh-faced and the passion of her youth giving off an air of naivete. </p><p>This wasn’t <em> that </em> Hermione. This one was older, wiser and far more experienced with the inner machinations of the Ministry. She’d been stuffed into a department that most people hated not so that she could <em> fix </em> things but so that she could languish in the pit of it. This Hermione wanted to escape that fate, wanted to come off the sidelines and address her ambitions head-on.</p><p>Rather much like a Slytherin, Bellatrix supposed. Nothing straightlaced about this girl, and if Cissa was correct then certainly nothing about her was <em> straight. </em></p><p>“Fine.” Bellatrix acquiesced with steel lacing her voice, “I’ll help you then, you help me, and no need to send yourself off to the Rock. But I have one condition that you’ll have to meet when we’re through. First though, what is it that <em> you </em> want, Ms. Granger?”</p><p>---</p><p>“Order! <em> Order! </em> <b> <em>Quiet down the lot of you, or I’ll bloody make you!”</em> </b></p><p>Hermione refused to smirk. Didn’t smile, or even nod. Instead, she simply stood there before the assembled Wizengamot and thanked all the Gods she knew. Albus was <em> losing. </em></p><p>The fact that she was winning meant less to Hermione than the happiness at seeing him need to back down from <em> anything. </em> It also meant little to Bellatrix, the banshee of a woman still standing at her place in the centre of the courtroom - <em> theatre, more like </em> - and cackling like she’d gone mad.</p><p>Screaming.</p><p>Howling above all their voices and her fortitude and posture screaming <em> ‘Mad-Woman.’ </em></p><p>And of course, the French were all bloody livid at that.</p><p>Fleur Delacour had been chosen to spearhead this period of questioning as the French Ambassador to the British Wizengamot. Her marriage to an influential pure-blood British household had given her more standing then she’d have had if she <em> weren’t </em> an integral part of British Wizarding politics. She held more merit here, more weight. That she happened to be one-half Veela - <em> and a very good friend of Hermione’s to boot </em> - had just been icing on the cake.</p><p>Hermione knew her plan was working as flawlessly as she could hope for, despite Auror Commander Moody’s rather obvious attempts to bait her into fucking up. His best, however, would never be enough to turn the tide.</p><p>Especially not now that Lucius Malfoy had joined her little escapade. </p><p>The one-third Veela blood swirling throughout his veins was more than enough to push the French assembly into siding with her. Bellatrix had been the first witness and by far the loudest, but Lucius had been far more instrumental to their case. A too-proud patriarch who had never once wanted to bring his failings into the light. </p><p>Three years spent cooped up within Azkaban for his part in a monopolization scheme that had targeted imported Hippogriff eggs. A lifetime of regret and shame, PTSD that would have put a proper Muggle psychologist to tears, and the constant tears from his - <em> one-quarter Veela, but expressed where Bellatrix’s blood was hidden </em> - wife. </p><p>He’d have never joined them if Bellatrix hadn’t pushed him to testify and by all the Gods the woman had <em> pushed. </em> </p><p>Hermione <em> still </em> couldn’t figure the woman out. Her conditional acceptance of Hermione’s help had been <em> easy </em> to rationalize as a wounded predator smelling blood in the water. But then the older woman had laid out her actual request for trial and <em> then </em> she had acquiesced to Hermione’s ambitions. </p><p>It was ridiculous, mad even, but Hermione supposed she shouldn’t have thought of Bellatrix as anything close to simple.</p><p>A young girl who’d been tempted towards the Dark with promises of safety for her family. A young girl who’d grown into the placement of Right Hand to a Dark Lord, a failed uprising under her belt before she’d even turned twenty-five. That failed uprising had cost her much - <em> as well as the Ministry sanctioned but hardly proven charge that she’d played a part in the torture of two war heroes </em> - throughout the years. Had landed Bellatrix with an extended stay at Azkaban.</p><p>She was out on good behaviour and the rather shoddy word of a drunken Ministry official who’d had the good luck of finding her beaten half to death after an Auror had gotten too tired of her backtalk. But Bellatrix wanted more. Wanted <em> freedom. </em> Wanted to tear apart Azkaban, root and stem pulled up from the earth before everything was burned and salted.</p><p>It was just as well. </p><p>Hermione hated that bloody place, had visited it once or twice and made sure that she never had to go there more often than that. But she herself wanted <em> more, </em> wanted more power and heights than the lowly position of Head to a shitty department would allow her.</p><p>
  <em> This was her ticket out. </em>
</p><p>A smile cracked the corner of her lips. A genuine laugh burbled up to match time with Bellatrix’s, and all around them madness flew as Fleur righteously tore old Albus down to shreds.</p><p>---</p><p>“Well, I think we can safely say that went far better than expected.”</p><p>It was an understatement for sure, and one that Bellatrix would gladly pick apart.</p><p>Later though. Right now it was simply a time for celebration, not haranguing over semantics.</p><p>She’d <em> won. </em></p><p>“Oh don’t look so chipper,” she jibed, knocking her shoulder against - <em> the admittedly taller (which Bellatrix would never claim as a fault) </em> - Hermione. “They’d claim that you planned this from the start if you happened to smile.”</p><p>“Are you saying that you didn’t plan this?” Hermione’s face was placid but Bellatrix was certain that she could see the beginning edge to a proper smirk.</p><p>Bellatrix laughed, loud and far more genuine than the shrieks she’d been unleashing amongst the Wizengamot. “No, no. Not at all. Why, are you accusing me of having engineered some plot against the Auror Corps, Ms. Granger?”</p><p>“Oh Gods,” Hermione <em> did </em> laugh at that. “Moody <em> would </em> say that. The old bat is just as nutty as a squirrel in winter.”</p><p>“True, true. But you’re right, we won and it went along easier than we expected. Now, I do believe that there’s the matter of payment to settle.”</p><p>Hermione quieted as they ascended the little stairwell towards the exit, no one there to prod or ask them questions. They’d gone around where most people left, the Floo being the lesser choice in her mind since there would be so many reporters trying to get a glimpse of just what the fuck had happened. This way was far more discrete. Hardly anyone would ever come out here to the edges of the Ministry and, instead, they could both enjoy some peace and quiet.</p><p>“Fine, fine. Ask away.” Hermione’s voice was sharp but her eyes were filled with mirth, a toothy smile growing as they ascended the last few steps towards the exit.</p><p>“Madame Granger, in celebration of your win today would you mind joining me for a date?”</p>
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